Gold of the Gods Part 33

"I think so," returned Norton. "I'll keep you posted."

Kennedy and I walked on a bit.

"I'm going around to see how Burke, O'Connor's man, is getting on watching the Mendoza apartment, Walter," he said at length. "Then I have two or three other little outside matters to attend to. You look tired. Why don't you go home and take a rest? I shan't be working in the laboratory to-night, either."

"I think I will," I agreed, for the strain of the case was beginning to tell on me.

XX

THE PULMOTOR

I went directly to our apartment after Craig left me and for a little while sat up, speculating on the probabilities of the case.

Senora de Moche had told us of her ancestor who had been intrusted with the engraved dagger, of how it had been handed down, of the death of her brother; she had told us of the murder of the ancestor of Inez Mendoza, of the curse of Mansiche. Was this, after all, but a reincarnation of the b.l.o.o.d.y history of the Gold of the G.o.ds?

There were the shoe-prints in the mummy case. They were Lockwood's. How about them? Was he telling the truth? Now had come the poisoned cigarettes. All had followed the threats:

BEWARE THE CURSE OF MANSICHE ON THE GOLD OF THE G.o.dS.

Several times I had been forced already to revise my theories of the case. At first I had felt that it pointed straight toward Lockwood. But did it seem to do so now?

Suppose Lockwood had stolen the dagger from the Museum, although he denied even that. Did that mean, necessarily that he committed the murder with it, that he now had it? Might he not have lost it? Might not some one else--the Senora, or Alfonso, or both--have obtained it?

Might not Mendoza have been murdered with it by some other hand to obtain or to hide the secret on its b.l.o.o.d.y blade?

I went to bed, still thinking, no nearer a conclusion than before, prepared to dream over it.

That is the last I remember.

When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the bed still, but Craig was bending over me. He had just taken a rubber cap off my face, to which was attached a rubber tube that ran to a box perhaps as large as a suitcase, containing a pump of some kind.

I was too weak to notice these things right away, too weak to care much about them, or about anything else.

"Are you all right now, old man?" he asked, bending over me.

"Y-Yes," I gasped, clutching at the choking sensation in my throat.

"What has happened?"

Perhaps I had best tell it as though I were not the chief actor; for it came to me in such disjointed fragmentary form, that it was some time before I could piece it together.

Craig had seen Burke, and had found that everything was all right. Then he had made the few little investigations that he intended. But he had not been to the laboratory. There had been no light there that night.

At last when he arrived home, he had found a peculiar odour in the hall, but had thought nothing of it, until he opened our door. Then there rushed out such a burst of it that he had to retreat, almost fainting, choking and gasping for breath.

His first thought was for me; and protecting himself as best he could he struggled through to my room, to find me lying on the bed, motionless, almost cold.

He was by this time too weak to carry me. But he managed to reach the window and throw it wide open. As the draught cleared the air, he thought of the telephone and with barely strength enough left called up one of the gas companies and had a pulmotor sent over.

Now that the danger was past for me, and he felt all right, his active mind began at once on the reconstruction of what had happened.

What was it--man or devil? Could a human fly have scaled the walls, or an aeroplane have dropped an intruder at the window ledge? The lock on the door did not seem to have been tampered with. Nor was there any way by which entrance could have been gained from a fire escape. It was not illuminating gas. Every one agreed on that. No, it was not an accident.

It was an attempt at murder. Some one was getting close to us. Every other weapon failing, this was desperation.

I had been made comfortable, and he was engaged in one of his characteristic searches, with more than ordinary eagerness, because this was his own apartment, and it was I who had been the victim.

I followed him languidly as he went over everything, the furniture, the walls, the windows, the carpets--there looking for finger-prints, there for some trace of the poisonous gas that had filled the room. But he did not have the air of one who was finding anything. I was too tired to reason. This was but another of the baffling mysteries that confronted us.

A low exclamation caused me to open my eyes and try to discover what was the cause. He was bending over the lock of the door looking at it intently.

"Broken?" I managed to say.

"No--corroded," he replied. "You keep still. Save your energy. I've got strength enough for two, for a while."

He came over to the bed and bent over me. "I won't hurt you," he encouraged, "but just let me get a drop of your blood."

He took a needle and ran it gently into my thumb beside the nail. A drop or two of blood oozed out and he soaked it up with a piece of sterile gauze.

"Try to sleep," he said finally.

"And you?" I asked.

"It's no use. I'm going over to the laboratory. I can't sleep. There's a cop down in front of the house. You're safe enough. By George, if this case goes much further we'll have half the force standing guard.

Here--drink that."

I had made up my mind not to go to sleep, if he wouldn't, but I slipped up when I obeyed him that time. I thought it was a stimulant but it turned out to be a sedative.

I did not wake up until well along in the morning, but when I did I was surprised to find myself so well. Before any one could stop me, I was dressed and had reached the door.

A friend of ours who had volunteered to stay with me was dozing on a couch as I came out.

"Too late, Johnson," I called, trying hard to be gay, though I felt anything but like it. "Thank you, old man, for staying with me. But I'm afraid to stop. You're stronger than I am this morning--and besides you can run faster. I'm afraid you'll drag me back."

He did try to do it, but with a great effort of will-power I persuaded him to let me go. Out in the open air, too, it seemed to do me good.

The policeman who had been stationed before the house gazed at me as though he saw a ghost, then grinned encouragingly.

Still, I was glad that the laboratory was only a few blocks away, for I was all in by the time I got there, and hadn't even energy enough to reply to Kennedy's scolding.

He was working over a microscope, while by his side stood in racks, innumerable test-tubes of various liquids. On the table before him lay the lock of our door which he had cut out after he gave me the sleeping draught.

"What was it?" I asked. "I feel as if I had been on a bust, without the recollection of a thing."

He shook his head as if to discourage conversation, without taking his eyes off the microscope through which he was squinting. His lips were moving as if he were counting. I waited in impatient silence until he seemed to have finished.

Then, still without a word, he took up a test-tube and dropped into it a little liquid from a bottle on a shelf above the table. His face lighted up, and he regarded the reaction attentively for some time.

Then he turned to me, still holding the tube.